China MIGHT be able to put 100 warheads on us, but I doubt that. They only have about 2 dozen real ICBMs and 2 real Strategic subs...usually in port.
“China MIGHT be able to put 100 warheads on us, but I doubt that. They only have about 2 dozen real ICBMs and 2 real Strategic subs...usually in port.”
Your guess is as good as mine. All we know is that their total nuke stockpile is somewhere between 400 to 1000 warheads(Strategic+Tactical) and they have successfully tested MIRVed ICBMs.
But just as a thought experiment, let’s conjecture the worst that the current Chinese deployed arsenal can do to the CONUS. Their 2 modern SSBNs do not have operational SLBMs, and their best strategic LACMs only have a range of 3000kms so by necessity they are limited to land based ICBMs.
So what do they have in terms of land based ICMBs:
~20 DF-5s => 20 5-MT warheads anywhere in the CONUS
~20 DF-31s(assume MIRVed with 3 warheads) => 60 100kt warheads only in the West Coast and Mountain States
~15 DF-31As(assume MIRVed with 5 warheads) => 75 100kt warheads anywhere in the CONUS
So at the very worst, the current Chinese Nuclear arsenal can destroy about 150 American cities. That would translate into at most 50% of the U.S population dieing in the nuclear exchange.